What do rural youth want? Giving power to young men and women to drive change in Madagascar

« The world counts a billion of
young people, making a billion of hopes for a better future, a billion of ideas
to change the world. » (un.org)

On 12 August the world celebrated International Youth Day. The
UN set a theme: The Road to 2030: Eradicating Poverty and Achieving
Sustainable Consumption and Production, and IFAD took the opportunity to
ask a very fundamental question:‘What do rural youth want?’

Six days to kick off a life-long journey for change, and
it all starts with a vision!

Visioning
is the best way to enable youth to see their dreams and imagine a better and
bright future. The first GALS tool called Road Vision Journey allowed
them to draw their vision and make a yearly plan to achieving it. This tool
required two full days and was crucial to start the process for change.

Our vision :
Grow our sewing business and export our products

The young participants
were very happy to complete their road vision journeys. One of the young women was sharing her first impression:

« This tool is an eye opener for us. It helps us to think about our
future. »

« I have attended several trainings
and workshops, I took so many notes and it confused me. In this workshop, I
only draw and it becomes so easy to understand my vision. »

A group
discussion on individual and collective visions

Project staff members were also surprised by the outputs.
They realized that anyone, no matter their age, young or old, can dream of a
better life. According to many of them, those drawings will ease their work in
accompanying the young beneficiaries :

« With the vision tool, I will be able
to better monitor youth as I know where they are heading to. »

Plus, the
workshop provided to staff members an opportunity to learn : «I
discovered that I can also learn as much as the young beneficiaries.” The methodology is inclusive, accessible to all, even those
who are not able to read and write. Anyone, rich or poor, staff member or
project beneficiary, adult or child, needs a vision to take charge of his/her
life.

Involve all household, group and community members in achieving
a vision

Participants then analyzed their activities, paid or unpaid,
their incomes, assets and decision-making and all types of expenses within the
household. They identified imbalances and changes they are willing to do to create
more harmony and balance in order to achieve their vision. Through the Gender
Balance Tree, the youth became more aware of how they spent their money and
time:

«We spend
too much money, on hairdressing, make up, mobile phones and Facebook,
games, etc. We spend too much time watching TV, walking around and chatting
with friends. That money and that time could be invested in working toward our
vision. »

For staff members, the
tool offered an excellent approach to understand gender issues: « The
gender balance tree allowed me to understand gender issues without theory. It
became accessible and clear through this tool. »

Young women discussing inequalities within their households

The Leadership and
Social Empowerment Map is about sharing with others to spread the changes. The
principle is that everyone is a leader of change. Once you start to change, you
catalyse change around you. All
participants described how they will share the methodology to their family,
neighbours, colleagues, group and community members. Following the workshop, participants will
be equipped to make changes at individual, household and community levels and
plan it with the tool called Multilane Vision Journey.

A well appreciated methodology for staff members of FORMAPROD

As we went through
the various tools, staff members understood the value that GALS methodology can
add to their mandate.

« GALS offers a way to identify training needs for
youth and their parents at the grassroots level, and will encourage them to be
responsible of their own development. »« Facilitation techniques are highly participative, anyone
was able to interact and express their ideas. The workshop combined several
methods with a lot of practice and enabled a good grasp of the methodology. The
facilitation techniques are easily replicable in any rural community. Visual symbols
allow a good understanding of an individual’s own situation as well as of the others. »

Staff
members in charge of advisory services to young beneficiaries

Gisele Mukabalisa, one of the GALS facilitators from Rwanda,
talked of her satisfaction about the involvement of participants:

«Youth
really showed a need for a vision, a dream which give them hope for a better
future. When we went to the field after the workshop, we saw that they already
shared with all the family and committed for change. Another key challenge will
be the inequality of power relations between youth and adult/parents, and
conflicts in household which prevent them from developing and gaining access on
properties. Consequently, there is a need for tools to help them increase skills
in entrepreneurship and access to markets. »

To me, the workshop was very insightful. I learned how
gender issues can either disable or enable changes for youth, even at
individual level. For instance, there are a lot of gender issues behind a
school drop-out such as misunderstanding between child and parents, or just
unstable and conflictual family situation.

As FORMAPROD aims to train 100,000 rural youth to modernize
the rural economy, let’s wait and see in the near future how the GALS
methodology will help to reach that vision.

By Anja Rabezanahary, IFAD, Junior Professional Officer, Gender and social inclusion,